


Daemons in My Mind

by AerisLei



Series: Lunoct week 2020 [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Mostly comfort though, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26666671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AerisLei/pseuds/AerisLei
Summary: Written for Day 6 of LuNoct Week 2020!It has been 10 years since the horrific events that took Insomnia and Lunafreya away from Noctis, but when that time passes in the blink of an eye, the wounds don't have time to fade, even when what was lost has been returned.
Relationships: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Series: Lunoct week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933807
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8
Collections: Lunoct Week 2020





	Daemons in My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely follows up from Day 5s entry, but this can absolutely be read by itself the only things you need to know is that dawn has broken and they are married.

Noctis’ nightmares are almost invariably memories, albeit sometimes they are mangled conglomerations of the horrors he had lived through. Tonight was no different.

_Blue_ _sylleblossoms_ _stretched as far as the eye could see. Noctis stood alone for a moment among the flowers. In the space between one breath and the next,_ _Lunafreya_ _appeared some distance away from him, facing him with a sad look on her face and her hair loose rather than in its usual style._

_Blood stained her white dress, scarlet standing out starkly against the white. Noctis ran towards her, but no matter how fast he tried to run, the prince found he could not close the space between them._

_And then the smell of smoke_ _began to fill_ _the air. Flames raged suddenly, cutting off the path between himself and Luna, engulfing the field of flowers and leaving Noctis choking on air, struggling to breathe._

“Noctis.”

_He could hear Luna calling out for him across the flames, and stubbornly Noctis searched for a way to pass the flames. As he drew near, pain seared down his back._

“Noctis.” 

_Her voice repeated his name, this time sounding almost_ _maddenly_ _calm despite the flames that raged between them._

Cool hands touched too-warm skin as Luna shook him awake. “Noctis, it’s a dream. Everything’s alright.” Her voice was soft, and she was all too aware of how risky it could be to awaken him while he was dreaming like this. But Lunafreya couldn’t let it go on any longer, either. 

There was no moment as Noctis awakened where he wasn’t _aware_ that he’d been dreaming. Even so, he kept his eyes closed for several minutes, his face buried somewhat in the elbow of one arm draped across it. 

It took some time for his breathing to steady, and it was only then that Lunafreya laid back down, resting one hand on the bare skin of his chest as she settled against the pillows. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” 

“Maybe… you should.” She said carefully. “But it’s okay, if you don’t want to now.” There was no need to push him _now_. The wounds were perhaps too fresh, and maybe those dreams would haunt him for the rest of his life no matter what he did. 

“Can… I just hold you?”

Lunafreya didn’t respond with words, but Noctis didn’t need her to, not really. It was only a moment later when he shifted around to sort of curl against her. Luna’s head rested against his chest, and his arms wrapped around her. 

“Perhaps coming to Tenebrae wasn’t the best choice.” Luna acknowledged quietly. 

“No, it’s your home.” Noctis said after a moment into the darkness. “And it’s where we met the first time. There’s a lot of good here.” 

“It _was_ my home.” Luna corrected softly. “But these days, _you_ are home, Noctis. Wherever you are, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

His hand traveled up and down her back slowly, almost idly. “Luna I…” He trailed off. 

Luna didn’t press him to finish the sentence, instead settling one of her arms around him more completely as she rested there on his chest, willing her presence to remain calming.

“It’s okay, you know.” She said finally, after a long time. “For it to hurt. You didn’t have time to acknowledge the hurt before, always pushing from one thing to the next, with no chance to rest or heal. It’s… normal. Now that you’ve slowed down, you’re not in survival mode anymore, Noctis. It’s… I know it’s hard. Because you’ve spent so long trying not to acknowledge the pain. But you have to, in order to start to heal.”

“It’s been ten years, Luna.”

“Has it really though? For you, it passed in the blink of an eye. You didn’t live that time, you woke up and the whole world had changed. And really, that only makes it worse. For everyone else, the healing is done, but for you those terrible things just happened.” There was a pause, and then she continued. “I should know, it’s the same for me. One moment I was dying on the altar in Altissia the next… I was awake in a world plunged in darkness and waiting for the King’s return.”

Noctis was quiet for several moments, and eventually his hand stilled on the center of her back. For a moment, Luna wondered if he’d fallen back asleep, but she sensed in his presence a spike in his distress and realized that Noctis had begun to _cry_ and was trying to keep her from realizing it.

“How do we go forward in this era of peace when everything still hurts this much?” He whispered, and Luna could hear the slight break in his voice.

“One day at a time.” Lunafreya said after a moment. “And together.”

Without words, Luna urged him to change positions, and only settled again when Noctis’ head rested on _her_ chest instead of the other way around. One of her hands carded gently through his hair.

Noctis sniffled slightly.

“We’ll get through this.” Luna whispered into the darkness, her tone making the words a promise. “And we’ll help each other. There will be days it's hard. There will be days we have to leave things in other people’s hands until we find the strength to carry on, but we’re not alone, Noctis.”

“… Thanks.” 

Luna didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t really need to. Eventually, he moved from being partially on top of her to settle beside her on the pillows properly, and while a little more rest wouldn’t erase the shadows that the night had brought, it would make morning go just a little more smoothly.

Healing took time, and sometimes it was a difficult process. But they were together, and peace had come, and they finally had _time_ to heal properly. 


End file.
